Here are worship materials for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, a time for some scandalously good news.
Call to Worship Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15 adapted
One: It is good to give thanks to God—
All: to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
One: to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
All: It is good to give thanks to the music of the lute and the harp and the melody of the lyre.
One: For you, O God, have made me glad by your work;
All: at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
One: The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
All: They are planted in the house of God; they flourish in the courts of our God.
One: In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap, showing that God is upright;
All: God is my rock, and has no unrighteousness,
Which makes possible peace within and among us.
One: So we truly can greet one another, “The peace of God be with you.”
All: And also with you.
Prayer of Invocation (in unison)
Gracious God, in whom we live and move and have our being, your kingdom comes, and spreads, and takes hold whether we labor for its sake or not. Your love succeeds at its purpose of love. Your grace pours forth, whether we join this joyous tide or not.
We’re not used to being gratuitous. We’re used to being agents in all that happens, especially in what’s important. We’re used to being sent on some important mission, the success or failure of which depends upon us.
Today, though, we remember your will, we celebrate your movement, we rejoice and rest assured in the faithfulness of your work in all things for good. Because of you, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
This confession feels like a scandal: a shirking of responsibility, a dodging of duty. Help us to hear it as faith in your amazing grace.
Help us also to join it—your strong will for good to prevail, your patience that your goodness might work its way through time, your victory in the world which, encompassed by your eternal kingdom, has as its true king, reigning in love from the cross, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we pray. Amen.
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